


Since Brass, Nor Stone, Nor Earth, Nor Boundless Sea

by MonsterTesk



Category: Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Abuse, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Break Up, F/M, Jealousy, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-06-30
Updated: 2012-07-03
Packaged: 2017-11-08 21:11:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,010
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/447616
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MonsterTesk/pseuds/MonsterTesk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pepper and Tony are dating, right? And Bruce is sort of like a free-loader in the spare rooms of Tony's place? Then why does Tony seem the stranger in the building labeled "Stark" and why is Pepper waking up in Bruce's bed?<br/>Bruce would really like to know because all of this confuses him so much. It was much more simple when he was someplace else...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Dramaturg

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Antha Stark](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Antha+Stark).



> Title taken from a selected sonnet(65) of Shakespeare's.  
> I accidentallied this fic while at work trying to write a bromance between Pepper and Bruce.
> 
> For Antha Stark in the hopes that she'll come to terms with having an OT3.  
> Antha- I love you and I don't ever want to lose you and I'm sorry I couldn't say the latter part to you. Please never stop loving this worthless coward. ~<3
> 
>  
> 
> After Dramaturg the writing style will change pretty drastically. This is basically just the acting sort of ... well, dramaturg for the story.

Bruce Banner has always been angry- that’s what people don’t understand. He was angry at six when he realized not everyone’s daddy smelled like cheap tequila and stale beer all the time. He was angry when he realized why his mamma was always covered in those bruises as green as the scum in the ever present birdbath outside the kitchen window. He was angry when the families on T.V. didn’t match up to his. He was angry every time something reminded him that he and his family were unusual, dysfunctional- wrong. The anger that he experienced was unlike the anger others did. It wasn’t some simmering cauldron or curse aimed directly at one thing that sometimes accidentally splashed something else.

No, his anger was Moby Dick; a whale of an emotion, mythic in its proportions. It’s a feeling so overwhelming and constant that he can hardly feel anything else but it and even then it’s so big and expansive that he doesn’t have the capacity to feel it all the time.  
Bruce just knows that next to it everything else seems ridiculously miniscule and amusing. He stays calm because what is panic next to this passively burning, constantly wailing rage that makes up his entire being? Terror is a trout in a refreshing spring creek next to the undirected anger he feels always. The sea of salt and motion bitters the air he breathes and makes a hard, protective brine over his skin. He understands Ishmael; he knows how nothing ever matters as much as the anger that is his life-force and the rage that rocks his body so passionately. He went into science not for the detachment that science boasts but for the way it fascinated him.

  
Science is all about calculation and measuring outcomes and figuring out what variables could be combined together to make a desired outcome. That he was natural at. He figured out which variables teachers looked for in student actions to find out whether or not they had “attained a proper and balanced home life.” He calculated when and how much was sufficient to smile, how many friends he should have and how much interaction with them he should be seen having, how well to do his home and class work, how to not flinch when a door was shut too hard, and how to let others touch him without showing any outward defensiveness or annoyance. Figuring those things out, though, was a soft art that depended almost entirely on how subjective the focus of the equation was. If a teacher was more observant he had to seem more friendly and outgoing, if a teacher wasn’t very invested in their students he got away with much more.

But science… science was absolute. Every item, every chemical, every molecule, every atom had a name and an equation and a value that could be placed into a physical equation. Outcomes could be measured and repeated numerous times. Bruce could crunch atomic masses or chemical equations and the answers were steady, reliable, and blessedly silent.  
What Bruce had navigated to wasn’t a very sociable section of the world, or for the most part it wasn’t. When it came to science you had yourself and a room full of equipment and maybe one, two other people to interact with. Bruce could be in the same lab as someone and it wouldn’t be a requirement for them to talk. He could work silently and peacefully by himself, concentrating on things abstract or physical that took enough concentration that for whole stretches of time he could feel fine and normal and, in a way, safe in his productivity.

  
He doesn’t have to pretend to be normal or well-adjusted to lab equipment or a paper full of equations. He doesn’t have to be civil towards experiments or prototypes and he enjoys that. He knows he isn’t a good person; good has always been something outside of his reach but he tries with people. He tries to be inoffensive and small and unthreatening and, in a way, nice.

  
He’s always cared about people and has never wanted to harm them but part of him… part of him will always relished in the beauty of violence and the easiness of being cruel and that part of himself terrifies him. He’s afraid of himself and what he could do to someone if they got close to him; he doesn’t want to end up as cruel and empty as his father. At the same time he’s scared of making connections and caring personally for people because of how dangerous that is; he doesn’t want to end up like his mother: alone and broken and completely without hope or life.

  
So instead of allowing himself to have loved ones he talks to himself, makes self-flagellating jokes, takes care of strangers in lands where his mother-tongue is foreign, and makes sure to mention the giant green rage monster he turns into as much as reasonably possible to keep people from paying too much attention to Bruce Banner the man instead of Bruce Banner the walking volcano. Yeah, it hurts him. Whenever he’s around anyone who knows about the Other Guy he feels useless and unseen but he sees it as his lumps for all the damage and distress he has caused. He feels worthless and invisible but it’s safer than letting anyone see him and try to get close.

  
In closing, Bruce is always, and has always been, angry and he really doesn’t think you’d like him when he’s angry.

 

Bruce tells himself that he takes up Tony on his offer becauseBruce isn't stupid enough to pass up an opportunity as good as that. He makes sure to say thank you and that his stay is only temporary but he isn't surprised when Tony waves him off with a "stay as long as you like" before disapearing into his garage? lab? Bruce isn't sure what to call that place with the cars and the state of the art engineering station yet. 

He sees Pepper more than Tony and he's almost o.k. with that. For a long time they have awkward talks about the news, Loki, alien technolog, and Tony's inability to keep himself out of trouble. Eventually they talk about the reconstruction of New York City. They both complain about Tony to each other and then one day they're just magically sitting down to Movie Night which is apparently a Thing they do together though Bruce has no idea when that started. They take turns picking out which movies to watch and then suddenly three days out of the week they share a meal together in the city and swap stories about life before they met. 

 

Sometimes when they're watching a movie (or ignoring a movie for favor of paperwork for Pepper and essays on physics for Bruce) they fall asleep together. They wake up in the morning to the news and sit and watch it, commenting to each other about whatever on it catches their interest. Pepper prefers the human interest pieces and Bruce decides that she's going to bleed to death from her gusher of a bleeding heart. Bruce enjoys nit picking the newscasters and rolling his eyes and loudly complaining every time they screw up their logic or do an improper experiment. Pepper would laugh at his snarks and he'd deny the little sparkle in his chest that took place every time she laughed at something he said or any of the hundreds of other little things that friends do with each other. 

Bruce spent the entirety of his days in denial that he had formed a friendship with Pepper. Sometimes at night when he felt indulgent he'd give in and admit it and the fear and self-loathing would come rushing in to destroy whatever good being a friend of Peppers did. 

 

At night is usually when Bruce sees Tony. He'll find him in his lab, tinkering on this invention or that. The whole place constantly smells faintly of expensive alcohol. The smells gives Bruce more restless sleeps and nightmares than he cares to let on. He thinks Pepper knows anyway. He's never said anything directly about his father to her but she's so smart and observant that he's sure she must know anyway. Sometimes he's brave enough to recognize that he just hopes she knows already so he doesn't have to tell her about it. The telling is always the worst part. That and the way that no one ever looks at you the same again after. 

 

The times he sees Tony and Pepper together take his breath away and make him ache. They're so beautiful together. The way they tease each other and dance to each other's presence is spectacular. Bruce can only wish that in his fantasies he could have something as fullfilling as they do. It's as if they are two parts made whole. When they're in the same room as him Bruce feels like an outsider, awkward in his own impure and unworthy skin. He's glad for those moments, though. They restore his faith in the possibility of a happy romance. Sure, they work hard to be with each other and sometimes they fight but they're so good for and to each other; perfect compliments. 

 

Bruce prefers to interact with Tony in the lab than anywhere else. He plays his music loud enough that they don't have to talk which Bruce is thankful for most of the time and it's one of the few areas that Tony doesn't drink in. Bruce enjoys it the most when they're both stuck on something. 

Tony will turn the music down low and lean back against a counter, his hands busy with some tool or projection or facsimile or another, firing ideas and concepts at Bruce that Bruce has had no real reason or person to talk to about in years. Tony is the only person who will talk to him about science that doesn't involve gamma radiation in some way or another. They develope jokes about subatomic particles and Tesla's affair with a common street pigeon. 

 

Bruce is afraid to admit that he is, for the first time in a long while, sort of happy in his life. 

 

Sure, he has his off days where the constant smell of booze or some breaking story on the news or even just his own thoughts will set off a bad mood and he'll be tetchy and moody and snap at Pepper and Tony but it gets easier for them to deal with him when his control is more ragged than normal. They learn to leave him alone and not rise to the bait he casts out to start arguments. 

And sometimes he can't bear to be in the same building as Tony but Pepper always seems to know when he needs to get out and will ask him to deliver her lunch at the office that day or ask him to go on a walk with her or sometimes just touch his shoulder and remind him that it's o.k. to leave on his own. When he goes off on his own he doesn't usually come back for a few days, though. Preferring to just walk as far as he can, sleeping on park benches or stoops, until he gets so far entrenched in his goal to simply get 'away' that he isn't sure he's even in New York anymore. If it's not so bad he's back the next morning with bagels and hot chocolate for everyone. If it is bad then sometimes he has to call Pepper and appologize for not being able to make it to movie night and she'll sound disapointed and concerned and tell him that she misses him and he tells her to not let Tony set too much of the place on fire while he's gone. The longest he's wandered before coming back was two weeks. He'd ended up in Toronto. Pepper had been kind enough to send him a bus pass when he'd turned down her offer to fly him back. 

 

The day he'd returned Pepper had hugged him tightly and welcomed him home. Tony showed him the specs he had made for upgrades to the Iron Man suit and they'd had a long discussion about that. That night Pepper picked out Fly Away Home for them to watch and Bruce couldn't help himself or his dignity when he squawked at how cute the gosslings were. Pepper had sat next to him, leaning against his side and alternately stealing his arm or the popcorn bowl. Tony had wandered in every once in a while to toss a quip about chick flicks and gal pals before flitting off. Bruce felt like it was the first home-coming he'd ever recieved that had felt actually... welcoming. 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea,  
> But sad mortality o'ersways their power,  
> How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea,  
> Whose action is no stronger than a flower?  
> O, how shall summer's honey breath hold out  
> Against the wrackful siege of battering days,  
> When rocks impregnable are not so stout,  
> Nor gates of steel so strong but time decays?  
> O fearful meditation: where, alack,  
> Shall Time's best jewel from Time's chest lie hid?  
> Or what strong hand can hold his swift foot back,  
> Or who his spoil of beauty can forbid?  
> O, none, unless this miracle have might,  
> That ink black in my love may still shine bright.


	2. The Thousand Natural Shocks That Flesh Is Heir To

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Something crucial happens between Pepper and Tony but neither of them are talking about it to Bruce.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think I forgot to mention this in chapter one but if you spot some error or fault of mine and point it out to me then you get one free fic of your choice in any fandom that I know.
> 
> Chapter title from Shakespeare's Hamlet.

Tuesday night Bruce woke to the indistinct but passionate sounds of fighting. He rolled from where he'd been sleeping on his stomach to the farthest side of the bed from the door. He laid there for hours, long after the shouting had stopped, long after angry feet had thumped out doors and gone silent. He laid there and didn't sleep. A waking nightmare plagued him that he pretended to ignore.

 _His dad shouting, his voice mostly indistinct, his mother's almost constant near-chanting accompanying it. She always tried to talk dad out of it- as if her soothing voice and gentle words could help. Bruce knew better. He knew it wouldn't help- that it never helped. A shameful understanding that Bruce had always had overtook him. Gentle things, fragile things, soothing things did nothing to calm a rage so indelible that it was part of your being. They stoke it, if anything, hotter and more vibrantly cruel until there becomes a grace and a_ need  _to destroy everything- anything beautiful around you. Inevitably there would be a crash of glass or an explosve thudding followed by his mom's short and surprised (always surprised, why did it always surprise her?) screams. Then it would be quiet. His father would stomp past his room and his mother would cry quietly wherever he had left her._

He fell into a fitful sleep, waking frequently curled tightly on his side, hands fisted against his chest and in front of his face, knees drawn up, and everything but one sheet pushed off the bed. 

 

In the morning he didn't bother to get dressed or even pull on a shirt before leaving his room for the first time since moving in. He decided that everyone could live with a topless, shoeless Bruce clad only in very loose illfitting pajama pants. 

As he shuffled in discontent towards the coffee pot he heard the quick clack of Pepper's long strides and then an "Oh! Ahhhuh... Gooooood morning, Bruce!" He grunted in a close facsimile of "morning" while glaring at the coffee pot as he waited for it. Crossing his arms and willing it to finish already, he leaned against the counter across from the coffee pot. He really just didn't want to deal with any living thing that had the capacity to talk today.

 

When he didn't hear the familiar rustle of Pepper laying out breakfast (she always brought Tony breakfast, the great lout) he looked away from one pot to another. She stood there with her bottom lip sucked into her mouth, staring at somewhere below Bruce's neck. 

"I'm not that hideous looking," he said. Pepper broke out of her trance, belatedly saying "I'm sorry. What'd you say?" 

"I said," he took two steps away from the counter (and towards her). "I'm not that hideous looking." He dropped his arms amd hid his hands in his pockets. "You were staring at me." She fushed lightly and looked away. 

"I'm sorry. I was lost in thought." Bruce nodded. 

"I could see." She cleared her throat and turned away, bussying herself by unpacking the bag. 

"You're not hideous looking at all, Bruce." She didn't look at him. "In fact, you're very handsome." Bruce turned away from her. Pouring coffee into his mug, he responded. 

"Right. I'm just chased the world over because of my studly looks and buff bod." He dumped the barest hint of creamer into his coffee and fled before she could say anymore. His chest ached and the back of his cheeks felt chemically burnt. 

 

Sitting on the couch, he rested his elbows on his knees and watched the news slightly louder than he needed to, mug burning his hands through. He heard her steps again. They stopped before she reached the elevator. He felt her eyes on him. He turned his head towards her, some possibly witty comment on the tip of his tongue. It shriveled up and he swallowed it whole, not even sure what it could have been anymore because Pepper- Virginia “Pepper” Potts who liked her coffee with two spoons of sugar and enough creamer to turn it beige and who hated herbal teas but drank them anyway because they were healthier than a pot and a half of coffee every day- was _looking_ at him. Not staring but _looking_ like she had never looked at him before. (Those times when they woke up on the couch together didn’t count because they weren’t really up yet and Bruce was still half-asleep and sure he was dreaming.)

 

His throat convulsed as he tried to come up with something- anything to say but before he could Pepper turned and fled out the elevator. He didn’t see her again until Thursday night when she showed up late for Movie Night. She spent the entire time, twitchily sitting on the other side of the couch from Bruce, her hands gripping each other.

Bruce worried and stressed over it until, six days later (that next Wednesday), he couldn’t bear the doubt and tension and the fights Pepper and Tony were getting into anymore. He packed a light rucksack and left the tower, left the city, left the state, left the country, left the continent.

 

He didn’t plan on coming back. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Or to take Arms against a Sea of troubles,  
> And by opposing end them: to die, to sleep  
> No more; and by a sleep, to say we end  
> The heart-ache, and the thousand Natural shocks  
> That Flesh is heir to? 'Tis a consummation  
> Devoutly to be wished. 
> 
> ...
> 
> For who would bear the Whips and Scorns of time,  
> The Oppressor's wrong, the proud man's Contumely,  
> The pangs of despised Love, the Law’s delay,  
> The insolence of Office, and the Spurns  
> That patient merit of the unworthy takes,  
> ....
> 
> Be all my sins remembered.

**Author's Note:**

> Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea,  
> But sad mortality o'ersways their power,  
> How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea,  
> Whose action is no stronger than a flower?  
> O, how shall summer's honey breath hold out  
> Against the wrackful siege of battering days,  
> When rocks impregnable are not so stout,  
> Nor gates of steel so strong but time decays?  
> O fearful meditation: where, alack,  
> Shall Time's best jewel from Time's chest lie hid?  
> Or what strong hand can hold his swift foot back,  
> Or who his spoil of beauty can forbid?  
> O, none, unless this miracle have might,  
> That ink black in my love may still shine bright.


End file.
